[0:00] This is a Philips Huegh smart bulb and I
[0:02] had to pay £55 to buy one of these here
[0:05] in the UK last week. That made me pretty
[0:07] angry. Then I found out IKEA literally
[0:10] starting this year has decided to become
[0:13] a tech company. They've just had their
[0:15] biggest ever smarthome push and their
[0:17] light bulb is £7. So I bought every
[0:22] single IKEA tech product I could find.
[0:25] No, literally. I bought their new
[0:27] giraffe lamp. I found smart tea lightss.
[0:29] I even discovered a cabinet that
[0:31] secretly opens up into an entire gaming
[0:33] station. Where are you?
[0:38] So, carrying no fewer than 47 IKEA
[0:40] products, I scured back home, desperate
[0:42] to find out how this stuff can actually
[0:44] be as good value as it seems to be. It
[0:47] was not much of a scurry by the end.
[0:50] So, I've only just started setting up
[0:52] these products, obviously prioritizing
[0:54] my new home, the gaming closet. But
[0:56] right now, at least this feels a little
[0:57] bit too good to be true. Like these mad
[0:59] lads made a MagSafe charger for £9. Yes,
[1:03] it's very light and it can wobble. But
[1:04] if you just stick it down, that's insane
[1:07] value. And the lighting. I thought this
[1:09] £7 smart bulb would have some very
[1:11] obvious caveat when I plugged that in.
[1:13] But there's an app. You turn it on and
[1:16] off from your phone. There's a
[1:17] brightness slider to the side and you
[1:18] can choose any color on the spectrum. I
[1:20] have found that Philips does also sell
[1:22] an affordable bulb, but even their
[1:24] absolute cheapest is three times the
[1:26] price of IKEA's. It's the same
[1:28] brightness as IKEA's. Oh, yeah. And it
[1:29] scores an F in energy efficiency
[1:31] compared to a D. And the thing with all
[1:33] this IKEA stuff is it's still based on
[1:35] matter, which is the latest standard in
[1:37] smart homes designed to be kind of like
[1:38] a shared language that lets all types of
[1:41] devices from all different companies
[1:42] play nice with each other. It means that
[1:44] I could say to this Alexa hub, "Alexa,
[1:46] light blue."
[1:50] Okay.
[1:52] Okay, that works. Or I can use a 4B IKEA
[1:57] matter remote. And it's so sick cuz
[2:00] clicking down turns the light on and
[2:02] off. You can scroll this wheel. 7 out of
[2:05] 10 satisfying. But then also press down
[2:07] at the bottom of the remote to switch
[2:09] which group of matter devices that I
[2:11] want to be controlling. The idea being
[2:13] that those devices could be almost
[2:15] anything, even one of these. So, this is
[2:18] the new IKEA color light strip. £13, by
[2:21] the way, compared to the minimum that I
[2:23] can find fillets for, which is 50. But I
[2:25] guess what they've cut to get there is
[2:27] this doesn't directly connect to
[2:29] anything. It's not matter. The only way
[2:31] you typically control it is this button
[2:33] to turn it on and off and this one to
[2:35] change color. But yeah, so what you can
[2:36] do then is connect it up to one of these
[2:38] matter smart plugs, which will then let
[2:41] my Mattera smart remote talk to it. And
[2:44] it has memory. When I turn it on, it's
[2:46] remembering what color it was set to
[2:48] before I turned it off. Am I nerding out
[2:49] over furniture store LEDs? Yes, but the
[2:53] configurability here for the money is
[2:55] like everything I've been searching for.
[2:58] Or so I thought at this point. Things
[3:00] are about to take a dark turn soon. IKEA
[3:02] has also made a bunch of matter sensors.
[3:05] And yes, I've also managed to catch them
[3:07] all. So, there's a 7 lb door sensor
[3:10] which I've stuck inside the gaming
[3:11] cabinet cuz it means every time this
[3:13] door closes, this part of the sensor,
[3:15] which is just a magnet, changes the
[3:17] magnetic field that's picked up by the
[3:19] hall effect sensor in the main body,
[3:21] which then sends a matter signal out to
[3:23] everything here, including all the
[3:25] non-smart stuff like these light strips
[3:27] because of those matter plugs.
[3:30] That was so well timed. And then because
[3:32] it's configurable, I can also get it to
[3:34] like ping me a notification to let me
[3:36] know that the door has been opened or
[3:38] closed. There's a motion sensor, too,
[3:39] which can do the same thing, but in
[3:41] response to, let's say, you walking into
[3:43] the room. And you can do crazy stuff
[3:46] like this. Right here is IKEA's
[3:48] temperature and humidity sensor. £5, by
[3:52] the way. And you could set this so that
[3:53] the moment it picks up that the lights
[3:55] are making this cabinet hot beyond a
[3:57] certain point, they just get switched
[3:59] off. And by the way, this isn't just
[4:01] running matter, the universal language.
[4:03] It's matter, but based on a layer of
[4:04] technology called Thread, which should
[4:07] be better than the more traditional
[4:09] Wi-Fi smart home tech of Bu. Thread
[4:12] essentially means that instead of each
[4:13] of your products needing to communicate
[4:14] with your Wi-Fi router first, they
[4:16] actually just talk directly to each
[4:18] other. And each one acts as its own
[4:20] signal repeater. So, it extends the
[4:22] range way past most routters. And it's a
[4:24] self-healing system. So if one device
[4:26] goes down, another one can just fill in
[4:28] that gap and keep the network going. You
[4:30] do still need a hub, but the cool thing
[4:32] about Thread is that that hub can be any
[4:35] kind of newish smartome product like an
[4:37] Amazon Echo or an Apple TV 4K, things
[4:40] you might already have. To be clear,
[4:42] plenty of companies are already using
[4:43] this combination of matter over thread,
[4:46] just not at this price. I don't actually
[4:49] understand like how is this even a
[4:50] viable business model? This is a £5
[4:53] product. One pound is just tax here in
[4:55] the UK. So IKEA is making4 pound from
[4:58] selling this. How in4 pound are you
[5:00] managing to cover the temperature and
[5:02] humidity sensor itself, the system on a
[5:04] chip required to run the thing, the
[5:06] materials, the display, the assembly,
[5:08] the packaging, the cost of retail, and
[5:10] then somehow still keeping room to make
[5:13] a bit of profit. Okay, I've just gone
[5:16] into a bit of a rabbit hole online and
[5:18] turns out you can actually find the
[5:20] exact sensor that IKEA is using in one
[5:22] of their products, their air quality
[5:24] meter, which they're selling for £25.
[5:26] But it's this look, the Sension Sen 63C.
[5:31] And if you search that up, this one
[5:33] sensor alone is worth like £28. So yeah,
[5:36] obviously IKEA is getting massive bulk
[5:38] discounts on parts, but still this would
[5:40] be a bit like if someone was selling a
[5:42] complete gaming PC for the price that
[5:45] you could also find just like the
[5:47] graphics card inside of it alone. I
[5:49] think IKEA has a particularly strong
[5:51] incentive right now to establish
[5:53] themselves in this space. So, they've
[5:55] chosen to make next to no money at all
[5:57] on this stuff because they know that
[5:59] they're already the home company and if
[6:02] they get this tech transition right,
[6:04] they will also become the smart home
[6:06] company and that could be worth
[6:08] billions. I've just tried some of their
[6:11] bedroom products and this stuff is not
[6:12] matter. It's actually a bit less smart,
[6:14] but it might be even better value than
[6:16] the smart stuff. Like for £150 a pop,
[6:19] we've got things like the cabinet
[6:20] lights. They've got motion sensors
[6:21] inside to pick up when you open doors or
[6:23] drawers. Nice and bright, too. And then
[6:26] the nightlight. You might remember I was
[6:28] absolutely in awe at Xiaomi's motion
[6:30] sensing nightlights. They're £12. The
[6:33] IKEA nightlight is £2. Still seems to
[6:35] work just as well and lasts 6 months on
[6:38] battery apparently. There's an
[6:40] interesting thing I've started to notice
[6:41] with IKEA products.
[6:43] Oh, still works.
[6:46] This company is not really like most
[6:48] tech companies where they come across
[6:50] like they're designing products with one
[6:52] hive mind and each product has the exact
[6:54] same philosophy. Every IKEA product
[6:56] seemingly has its own assigned designer.
[6:59] Maybe it's like whoever came up with the
[7:01] idea for something becomes the lead
[7:03] producer of it, which is probably pretty
[7:04] normal when it comes to furniture, but
[7:06] kind of weird with tech cuz it means
[7:08] that each product functions a bit
[7:10] differently. But then the upside is some
[7:11] of this stuff is so creative. Like look
[7:14] at this really nice weighty glass bowl.
[7:17] This is where you chuck your stuff like
[7:19] your keys, your chewing gum, your micro
[7:23] Game Boy Color
[7:25] for some reason. But then you can stick
[7:27] your phone onto this magnetic park and
[7:29] that's a charger. And then press down.
[7:31] It's a light too. I don't know about
[7:33] you, but I think that's pretty
[7:34] delightful for £15. These speakers are
[7:37] £5 each. I say each because the idea is
[7:39] you just press one button to pair two of
[7:41] them together. And you can do this with
[7:43] up to a hundred of them. You probably
[7:46] shouldn't. They don't sound very good,
[7:48] but you can, and that's kind of fun. Or
[7:52] tea lights. Up until this point, I've
[7:53] only ever used real tea lights, but
[7:55] then, you know, they die after one use.
[7:57] Or ones powered by those little coin
[7:58] cell batteries that are a massive hassle
[8:00] to keep changing out. But IKEA has made
[8:02] a USBC charging station where each
[8:04] telight docks when you're done with it,
[8:06] blinks to confirm that it is charging.
[8:08] And then when charged, IKEA has claimed
[8:10] that they can last 35 hours each. That
[8:13] number sounded crazy to me, so I tested
[8:14] it myself. And uh yeah, they weren't
[8:16] kidding. Teite battery tests. That's
[8:19] where we're at now. What are they
[8:21] sitting on? An IKEA table that is also
[8:24] an air purifier. And credit to David
[8:26] Wall. The thing's so damn efficient.
[8:28] Pull out these clips that lets you take
[8:30] the top off. Then you can see your
[8:31] filter in case you want to change it. A
[8:33] hidden compartment where the power
[8:35] supply hides. Love that. And then the
[8:37] cable wires through the back of the leg.
[8:41] David, can you organize my life, please?
[8:43] Oh, and then my favorite. It's a giraffe
[8:46] lamp. You push the head to turn it on.
[8:49] Gosh. And then it'll turn itself off
[8:51] after 15 minutes. Just enough time for a
[8:54] quick Pokémon Champions. Then you can
[8:55] even take the light off and use it to
[8:57] make sure you can see your way to the
[8:59] bathroom at night. Now, there are some
[9:01] things I can see which partly explain
[9:03] the low prices, like the fact that IKEA
[9:05] seems to refuse to give you batteries
[9:07] unless they absolutely have to. This
[9:08] giraffe takes doubleas's. All of these
[9:10] sensors take AAA's. And I guess that
[9:12] kind of helps IKEA because then they can
[9:14] sell you theirs. And then the charger
[9:16] for those batteries, too. But I think
[9:17] the biggest thing is IKEA's volumes. I
[9:20] actually just cannot wrap my head around
[9:21] the fact that this company has sold over
[9:24] 140 million of this one bookshelf. So
[9:27] IKEA can place enormous orders for parts
[9:29] and get a very good deal doing so. And
[9:32] it actually feels like they specifically
[9:33] reuse those parts in as many different
[9:35] products as possible to maximize those
[9:37] savings. And even more importantly,
[9:39] unlike most companies who make home
[9:41] accessories, who probably sell a few
[9:43] thousand units and want to make big
[9:45] bucks with each one, IKEA does not care.
[9:48] As long as they're making pennies per
[9:50] product, they're still doing fine
[9:52] overall. That's why for years now IKEA
[9:54] has been able to sell things at silly
[9:56] low prices when they want to things like
[9:57] these simple sensors. And I guess now
[10:00] they're seeing it as their chance to
[10:01] start applying that to the smart home
[10:04] now specifically because matter is kind
[10:07] of like the stars aligning for IKEA. You
[10:09] might know that for the last decade, the
[10:11] smart home was basically owned by
[10:13] premium companies like Philips Huegh,
[10:15] Sonos, Google Nest. Because to actually
[10:17] make a smart home that worked needed a
[10:19] ton of initial R&D to create a system
[10:22] and a set of hardware where each thing
[10:24] can talk to each other, you had to be
[10:26] primarily a tech company. So, up until
[10:29] this point, there's been no such thing
[10:31] as the mass market middle ground, where
[10:34] someone goes in to buy a sofa or a
[10:36] cabinet, but then casually adds a smart
[10:38] bulb to their basket just because it's
[10:40] right there at the till. It's been too
[10:41] complicated and priced way too high. But
[10:44] matter is designed to fix that. In
[10:46] theory, it takes away all of that
[10:48] expensive R&D that used to cost
[10:50] billions. All of that will my bulb
[10:52] actually talk to my speaker engineering,
[10:54] that's now baked into the standard
[10:56] itself. So you don't need to be a tech
[10:58] company anymore. You just need to make
[11:00] yourself matter compatible. And no one
[11:02] wins more from this than the company
[11:05] with hundreds of millions of people
[11:06] specifically walking through their doors
[11:08] while in the process of setting up a
[11:10] home. One area where it definitely does
[11:12] pay to go high-end though is the eight
[11:14] sleep bed I'll sponsor
[11:17] which I've been using for over a year at
[11:19] this point instead of the bed that I
[11:21] spent 10 times more money on because I
[11:23] tested them and to my shock/ despair
[11:26] this made me sleep better and it's not
[11:28] even close anymore cuz you know how
[11:29] every single sleep device measures your
[11:31] sleep score with a number right well
[11:33] eight have just upgraded their app with
[11:35] a sleep agent powered by AI that can
[11:37] also tell you why you slept the way you
[11:39] did and then fix it Like the last two
[11:41] weeks, I've been kneede working on an
[11:43] investigation video, and I've been
[11:44] stressed. But this app is not just
[11:46] noticing that and giving me suggestions
[11:48] for how to fix it by itself, but it's
[11:50] also taking matters into its own hands
[11:52] and making 30 different adjustments
[11:54] while I sleep. And with my code boss,
[11:56] you can get $350 off the latest Pod 5.
[11:59] You have 30 days to try it, but I don't
[12:01] think you'll be sending it back.
[12:04] It's falling apart, guys. I know I did
[12:06] the whole spiel about why all this
[12:08] matter stuff should be incredible, but
[12:10] it's been 4 days of living with our IKEA
[12:12] tech and it is not going well. Like this
[12:16] doughnut lamp, which by the way on its
[12:19] own is already kind of disappointing cuz
[12:21] it's the exact same tech as that £7
[12:23] smart bulb. Same app, same features, but
[12:26] just now because it's in a mouth blown
[12:28] glass container, it's £55. It doesn't
[12:31] even have zone lighting or the ability
[12:32] to do gradients. But more importantly,
[12:35] how is the connection process this
[12:37] terrible? We've been going through loop
[12:39] after loop of discovery trying to find
[12:41] the thing. And after seven failed
[12:42] attempts, it randomly works on the
[12:44] eighth, even though we've changed
[12:46] nothing. Some of the bulbs have the same
[12:47] thing. Like, we put six of them in this
[12:49] column light over here. Bought them all
[12:51] the same day. Five worked perfectly. One
[12:54] just would not connect. It tries to find
[12:56] it for two full minutes and then just
[12:58] says unable to add accessory. I've
[12:59] noticed sometimes the QR code on the box
[13:02] lets you add these products onto your
[13:03] network. Other times it does not. And
[13:05] then the only thing that seems to work
[13:06] when that happens is resetting the hub
[13:09] and then manually entering the unique
[13:11] device numbers that you can find on the
[13:12] products. And while I've been dealing
[13:13] with that, some of the lights that
[13:15] originally set up fine have now started
[13:17] showing that they're offline when
[13:19] they're clearly on. My precious matter
[13:21] remote has gone super laggy sometimes.
[13:28] That should have turned it off. Didn't
[13:34] like here. What's the matter?
[13:35] >> Do you want to press it 100 times and
[13:37] see what the success rate is?
[13:39] >> Oh my god. I don't want to. One.
[13:45] This is content.
[13:49] No.
[13:52] No. Yes.
[13:57] How much longer do we have of this?
[14:07] 46 successes.
[14:10] Oh dear. Still, you know, you see that
[14:12] and then you think maybe it's just me.
[14:15] Then I looked online. Reddit is full of
[14:18] I bought IKEA's Matter products. Nothing
[14:21] will connect. There's some positive
[14:22] reviews on the IKEA site, but then
[14:24] nearly as many one stars with pretty
[14:26] much each person talking through
[14:28] everything they've done to try and get
[14:29] this stuff to work and then how it still
[14:32] doesn't. I even found someone who's
[14:33] tried to pair 59 of these matter remotes
[14:36] and they've only managed to successfully
[14:38] pair 29. They've got this 11step
[14:41] troubleshooting technique they followed
[14:42] and according to them, it fixed nothing.
[14:45] So, they're estimating a 50% defect
[14:48] rate, which kind of horrifyingly lines
[14:52] up with the near 50% negative reviews on
[14:55] their site
[14:57] and the 50% success rate of the remote.
[15:01] I mean, regardless of which way you look
[15:03] at it, it's completely unheard of. What
[15:04] if your car only started 50% of the
[15:07] time? The more I look into this, the
[15:09] more it feels like ultimately matter is
[15:11] just not ready. It could be, and it
[15:13] should be the solution. And one day it
[15:15] still might be. But it seems like the
[15:17] main companies who built matter, Apple,
[15:19] Google, Amazon, etc., they invested in
[15:21] it because it would help to promote the
[15:23] idea that anyone could have a smart
[15:24] home. But individually, none of them
[15:27] actually has an incentive for it to
[15:29] succeed. If matter becomes a viable
[15:31] mainstream smart home solution, then
[15:34] who's going to pay three times the price
[15:35] for a Google Nest branded doorbell? How
[15:38] will Amazon make sure that you also
[15:39] subscribe to Prime and do all of your
[15:41] shopping on Amazon.com? Matter will
[15:44] basically open up the gates for
[15:45] companies like IKEA to whip up something
[15:47] for a Fiverr that works just as well and
[15:49] that's not going to lock you into any
[15:51] company's ecosystem. You'll notice as
[15:53] well if you pay close attention that
[15:54] Samsung has actually been really great
[15:57] with all this matter stuff. Their Smart
[15:59] Things is usually among the first
[16:00] platforms to support each new Mattera
[16:02] version, often within a few months of
[16:04] release. But Apple, Google, Amazon,
[16:06] sometimes we're talking a year behind
[16:08] for the same updates. And that's
[16:10] probably not random. Samsung is the most
[16:12] aggressive because Samsung has the least
[16:14] to protect. They don't have the dominant
[16:17] voice assistant or the dominant phone
[16:20] ecosystem. So, an open standard like
[16:22] Matter has a lot of upsides for them.
[16:24] They make tons of stuff like fridges,
[16:26] washers, and ovens. All matter is going
[16:28] to do is help those products work better
[16:30] in other companies systems. It's really
[16:32] those companies, the ones who make those
[16:34] systems like Amazon, who have the most
[16:36] to lose and so are the most reluctantly
[16:38] trudging towards actually making matter
[16:40] good. and instead focusing their efforts
[16:42] on trying to ensure that the best
[16:44] experience with their products comes
[16:45] when you use all of them and you do so
[16:47] via their app. And it feels like all of
[16:49] this politics has left IKEA a little bit
[16:53] stuck. They clearly saw the potential of
[16:55] matter. They dived head first into it,
[16:57] but it's just not ready yet. And while
[16:59] IKEA are not the only ones supporting
[17:01] matter, the difference is that IKEA's
[17:03] products depend on matter because they
[17:05] don't have their own robust ecosystem to
[17:08] fall back on. So, for the sake of making
[17:10] this smartarthome dream accessible to
[17:12] the masses, I really hope IKEA can get
[17:14] over this incredibly bumpy start. But
[17:18] I'm not holding my breath.